What improves waste management? - Veolia Environmental Services

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20 tilted more towards a cost-benefits analysis than a strict desire to protect the environment. The waste management policy of the pragmatic EPA, the US environmental protection agency, focuses on reduction at the source, product reuse, composting and methane biogas production. Landfills are also the primary means of waste elimination A weapon against climate change By creating a highly efficient waste landfill facility in Brazil, Onyx is helping the Netherlands achieve its goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Here’s now. What is the connection between waste landfill and combating climate change? This may seem like a tough exam question, and yet… the Kyoto Protocol provides for companies in industrialized countries (those required to control their greenhouse gas, or GG emissions) to earn “emission reduction certificates” by investing in ways to effectively lower GG emissions in the developing world. In UN jargon, this is called a clean development mechanism, or “CDM.” Onyx definitely intends to take advantage of this “flexibility mechanism.” Its Brazilian subsidiary has devised a plan to simultaneously reduce GG emissions from the Tremembe household waste landfill facility, located in the Sao Paolo suburbs, and “sell” its certified emission reductions (CER) for carbon dioxide to the Netherlands. That’s the basic idea. Let’s look at how it works in practice. Biogas, which consists primarily of methane, can be treated and recycled as a renewable energy. for large-area countries such as Australia, New Zealand and Brazil. On the other hand, densely populated, wealthy nations such as Japan and Taiwan stress recycling and incineration, like Europe. In the Japanese islands, the amount of household waste deposited in landfills has dropped by almost half in 10 years, falling from roughly 15 to 8 million metric tons a year. Best environmental practices Onyx plans to equip the major Brazilian landfill facility (18,000 metric tons a year) with a biogas collection and destruction system. Biogas, which consists mostly of methane, features a higher “global warming power” than carbon dioxide. By burning biogas in fume incinerators, carbon dioxide emissions “replace” methane emissions. Good waste storagelandfill practices are important in combating the greenhouse effect. A project that benefits both Brazil and the Netherlands The Netherlands, a big buyer of quotas and GG emission reduction certificates, chose the Tremembe landfill facility project. Once the United Nations finalizes acceptance, the center will enable Brazil to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by almost 500,000 metric tons in 10 years and the Dutch government, which is helping finance the Brazilian facility, to purchase an equivalent number of certified emission reductions for its manufacturers. “There will be several benefits,” predicts Gary Crawford, Onyx environmental and quality assurance director. “The destruction of the biogas will prevent atmospheric emissions. Our image as a leader in environmental protection will be strengthened. And the facility will showcase our expertise in technologies for capturing and treating the biogas produced by waste landfill facilities. This is a plus in a country like Brazil, where the practice is not widespread.” If the pioneering facility is built, there is little doubt that many waste management companies might decide to take a page from its book. V.O. Developping country stick their toe in the water Although modern waste landfill facilities have a very limited environmental impact, the situation is much more critical in developing countries. Many cities in Asia, Africa and Latin America continue to pile up waste in gigantic uncontrolled dumpsites, for lack of financial and technical resources. The result is major sanitation and water Green energy in the US There are reportedly more than 340 waste landfill centers that recycle biogas in the United States. “There are many advantages to using methane as a fuel,” explains the director of Onyx’s landfill in Saint Louis County, Missouri. The facility powers two boilers at a Daimler Chrysler assembly plant, in partnership with Toro Energy. It routes methane through a compression station before piping via a 7 km pipeline. “It’s a renewable, reliable, cheaper source of energy than natural gas. Its recovery improves air quality, reduces olfactory disamenities for nearby residents, cuts greenhouse gas emissions and helps conserve fossil fuels. In addition, the revenue we earn from the sale of the energy and the savings to the operator help finance the operation.” Families benefit Onyx has also signed an agreement with Alliant Energy in Wisconsin. “Our eight cuttingedge microturbine generators supply electrical power for about 100 households,” says John King, director of the Horicon landfill. In Zion, Illinois, the methane sold to Commonwealth Edison is used to meet the electric power needs of 5,400 families. In Eau Claire, Wisconsin, the number is 2,600 households. The agreement reached with the local power station cuts annual coal consumption by 13,000 metric tons, or the equivalent of eliminating the carbon dioxide emissions of 22,000 cars, planting 15,000 hectares of woodland and saving 240,000 barrels of oil.
and air pollution problems. However, it doesn’t have to be that way. In Egypt, Alexandria can proudly point to its Borg El Arab waste landfill facility. Created by Onyx to comply with European safety standards, landfill takes in roughly a million metric tons of waste a year and replaces an uncontrolled dumpsite located next to a lagoon! Burkina Faso is showing the same concern for the environment. With the help and advice of the regional municipality of Lyon, Ouagadougou is in the process of building one of the first real sanitary landfill in West Africa. Biogaz recovery In the fight against the greenhouse effect, the biogas produced by waste sites has emerged as environmental public enemy N°. 1. Each metric ton of stored household waste produces roughly 200 cubic meters of a gas mixture composed chiefly of methane and carbon dioxide, two of the primary greenhouse gases. These gases can linger for several decades. In 2000, American dumpsites emitted over 222 million metric tons of CO 2 equivalent, or almost half of all French Poland inaugurates its first environmental dumpsite On January 26 Onyx inaugurated the Chrzanow waste storagelandfill facility, near Krakow, in a ceremony attended by the Polish minister of the environment. Some 100,000 metric tons of metric waste produced annually by 300,000 residents will be treated there for at least 21 years. Although Poland disposes of 98% of its nonhazardous waste in landfills, this will An air-tight cover blocks olfactory disamenities and biogas emission. Leachate injection wells and/or horizontal drains moisten the entire biomass. Bioreactor technology. emissions! It is possible to recover energy from captured biogas. In France, over 80% of the 200 landfills with annual capacities of over 20,000 metric tons were equipped with a biogas capture system in late 2002. According to the minister of the environment and sustainable development, the 27 “laggard” sites should be modernized by the end of 2004. Onyx has opened a Chinese sanitary landfill in Guangzhou, China, that meets international standards— it recovers biogas—and is developing a project to convert the biogas produced by the Greenvalley landfill, in Hong Kong, into city gas for the urban power grid. Production is slated to begin sometime in 2006. Bioreactors Many specialists believe that “bioreactors” are the waste landfill facili- be its first landfill dumpsite built to European standards. Constructed in five months with the help of Geolia, Onyx’s design and engineering department, the site features active and passive tightness devices (geomembrane and clay layer), a rain water and runoff drainage system and a system for recovering and treating leachates. Trash is inspected at the entrance, to make sure that only non-hazardous waste from the four partner communes is admitted. A biogas recovery and recycling system will be added within five years. “There will be a 30-year monitoring period The degassing device is densified (well and/or horizontal drains). Efficient tightness systems (geomembrane) line the bottoms and walls of the case, keeping the liquid and gas effluents from dispersing. LANDFILL ties of the future. Bioreaction recovers leachates (1) and reintroduces them into the waste mass, adding moisture and nutrients to the bacteria inside it. The resulting acceleration of biodegradation has environmental—less pollution, increased biogas production—and economic—lower maintenance costs, energy recovery—advantages. Onyx operates 15 bioreactors in the United States. The one in Saint Louis County supplies enough energy for 3,000 households and eliminates the emission of 25,000 metric tons of CO2 a year. In France the first Onyx bioreactor was installed in La Vergne, in the Vendée region. L.T. 21 (1) Waste treated in landfill produces a liquid called leachate as a result of the combined impact of rainwater and natural decomposition. Leachates are rich in organic material and trace element and must be carefully collected and treated. after the center closes,” says Nicolas Rambaud, president of Onyx’s Polish subsidiary. “After the facility is phased out, sports fields or farmland may be created over it.” A packaging sorting center and composting hub will be added soon. The entire facility— which, Czeslaw Sleziak emphasized, will be especially valuable in the coming years—is part of a global project: the environmental minister talked about creating waste treatment sectors, in particular through publicprivate partnerships with Western European companies.
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What improves waste management? - Veolia Environmental Services

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